October 3, 2011

So I’m currently unemployed, and often bored, and the combination has me turning to crafts. I decided to make a pair of steampunk goggles.

I looked at a bunch of different pictures on line, and then I found this page (by the lady who writes Cake Wreks!) with details on how to make a nifty pair. I liked the chunky look of the eye pieces, so I decided to give it a go. I followed most of the given instructions, with some deviations.

The first big deviation has to do with the leather. Rather than go for the plain brown featured on the page, I put my leathercrafting powers to good use.

I bought a bag of scrap pieces from Tandy, and found two pieces that were big enough to form the eye cups. Then I used my geometric shape tool to give the leather the same repeating square pattern I used on my flask. I used a tool called a four-prong lacing chisel (it looks like a wide dinner fork that means business) to cut holes for stitching. The last steps were dying the pieces brown and applying finisher.

Then, I used some scrap pieces of soft upholstery leather to form a cushion around the eye cups.

I folded the leather over a pipe cleaner to make the edge look more rounded.

Next, I wrapped the leather pieces around the pipes, and then glued and stitched them into place.

I stitched on more upholstery leather for the band:

And added a shiny brass buckle.

I decided to use brass mesh for the lenses. Brass mesh, I found out, was about $60 a roll. I bought a small section of this stuff instead, and decided to spray paint it.

I discovered a small problem with the mesh – other people could look back up the goggles. They could see the stitching, and the screws holding on the nose bridge. I thought it looked messy. Also, I was concerned that the color of the mesh wouldn’t show up well when backed by gaping nothing. So I took another tip from the EPBOT instructions, and cut some lens backing out of a report cover.

The plastic is both opaque and textured – nobody is going to see anything through there. That works for me, because I don’t need to see through them, either. Unless I decide to get some prescription lenses cut for these goggles, I need to wear my glasses to get around.

The last thing to do was spray paint the mesh, the screw-on eye pieces and the bit of metal for the nose bridge (I used the same stuff EPBOT did). And here were the results:

The screw-on cups are painted antique brass. The screens and nose piece are painted shiny gold/brass.

Side view:

The EPBOT instructions suggested putting some decorative brass pieces on the sides. I ordered some, but I decided I like the raw look of the stitching better.

Top view:

The length of the eye pieces makes the goggles a little unwieldy. I might end up wearing them around my neck so they don’t over balance my hat.